(1) Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to submarines and more particularly to a launch system utilized with a submarine.
(2) Description of the Prior Art
Presently, modern submarines are designed to engage targets with devastating force. Submarine-launched torpedoes can seek and destroy other submarines and large surface ships at varying and long ranges. Furthermore, missiles fired from submarines can attack land targets hundreds of miles from the launch position of the missiles. Generally, both the offensive and defensive capabilities of submarines are formidable. However, shortfalls exist in the defensive capabilities of the submarine.
A submerged submarine is vulnerable to attack from directly above, particularly by airborne weapons launched at short range. If an enemy aircraft, or even a small surface craft, can establish its position over a submarine, there is no present defensive capability on the submarine to counter such a threat of attack. This vulnerability to attack is more present in that submarine operations often require that the submarine be brought to periscope depth; that is near but just below the surface. This vulnerability to attack is further present when a submarine is traveling on the surface, and when the submarine is moored at a pier in port.
One reason that a defensive vulnerability continues is that it is difficult to conFIG. a launch system that can successfully launch small defensive weapons, such as anti-air missiles, vertically, and in a simple manner, from a submerged submarine.
Proposed concepts for short-range defense of submarines have included mounting anti-aircraft weapons in the “sail” of a submarine, from which the weapons would be projected upward to the ocean surface. However, there are notable difficulties and disadvantages to such a proposed concept of defense. First, a substantial volume of space would be needed in the sail to accommodate a magazine for some number of weapons considered adequate for defense.
Second, missiles would have to be launched through a water column to the surface, before the missiles could function as airborne devices. While the missile-launching process is accomplished successfully when launching large tactical missiles from torpedo tubes and hull launchers, it would be difficult to launch small devices in the same manner of launch. This manner of launch requires large forces and complex mechanisms to deploy torpedo size missiles from traditional submarine launchers. It is therefore an engineering challenge to conFIG. a comparable capability for relatively small anti-aircraft weapons stored in the confined space that might be made available in the “sail” structure.
A third problem with sail-mounted launch systems is that sail mounted weapons would have to be specially made to endure the conditions of external underwater storage and/or ejection through the water to the surface.
As a result, a short range defensive weapon system for submarines is needed. It should be an objective of the launch system to store small anti-air weapons inside the hull of a submarine, and launch them into the air space above the submarine while the submarine remains submerged at periscope depth. It should also be an objective of the launch system to launch such weapons while the submarine is on the surface. The proposed system described in this disclosure would accomplish those objectives and would offer other significant features that are currently unavailable to submarines, such as deployment of anti-missile decoy countermeasures.